Sacrificial Nature
by Robyn the Snowshoe Hare
Summary: When Dawn is captured by Glory, a chain of events is started which will test just how much everyone is willing to sacrifice for what they feel is right.


Title: Sacrificial Nature  
Author: Robyn the Snowshoe Hare  
  
Dedication: For Sam.   
  
~*~*~*~*~  
  
Prologue  
  
~*~*~*~*~  
  
Winter nights were almost unknown in Southern California, but the wind that whipped through the broken window of Dawn's room held a chilling bite. The illusions that created the image of a typical teenage bedroom had held true, and broken furniture and knick-knacks echoed the violence that the shattered window silently attested. Of course, in reality it was all part of the illusion that maintained Dawn's existence. But the illusory damage was just as telling as the real thing.   
  
The wreckage continued into the hallway, and down into the living room, showing that Dawn had fled her abductors. The blood slowly congealing beneath the remnants of the babysitter left no clue as to who the attackers had been. At least, no clue that the Sunnydale Police Department picked up on.   
  
For once, neighbors had responded to screams by calling the police. By the time Buffy returned home from an uneventful hunt through the north woods, the house had already been cordoned off by crime scene tape. Under normal conditions, Buffy would've been kept from examining the house by police protocol.   
  
The situation was only saved from blows by an old classmate who had just graduated from the police academy. Through his intercession, Buffy was allowed inside. Under the pretext of packing an overnight bag, she slipped into Dawn's room, and found the clue.   
  
Little Dawn hadn't submitted quietly to her abductors. She had fought back, which no one had expected. Surprise had leant her the time to perform one crucial action.   
  
Lying on the floor in the tiny illusion of a bedroom, among the slivers of glass, lay an expensive hair clip. Torn from the elaborate coiffure of its owner, several strands of curly blond hair were still tangled in the teeth. From this, Buffy knew the identity and location of her enemy.   
  
Her immortal, unbeatable enemy.   
  
~*~*~*~*~  
  
Part One  
  
~*~*~*~*~  
  
"How do I kill her?"  
  
The harsh words cut through the silence of the magic shop. As soon as he recieved the call from Buffy, Giles closed the store. Anya's vocal protests about lost revenue died in her throat the moment that Buffy stalked through the door. For one of the first times as a human, Anya realized that now was truly the time to stay silent.   
  
The focus of all her attention was on the former Watcher, who inwardly trembled at the expression on his protégé's face, an expression that promised a swift death to any who opposed her. As the younger Scoobies attempted to fade into the background, Giles swallowed convulsively in a throat that had suddenly gone dry.   
  
"Her name." Coughing slightly, Giles mentally berated himself for allowing his voice to crack as it hadn't since he exited puberty. Consciously stilling the trembling of his hands, he forced himself to meet Buffy's eyes as he continued. "The prophet Deborah wrote in the third century that 'unnamed evils draw their true power from their obscurity. To name an evil is to force a claim upon it, stripping away its power and bringing about its death."   
  
"What's her name?" came the response in a tone that could freeze blood.   
  
Giles couldn't match her burning gaze, and allowed his eyes to drop. "We don't know.... it isn't written."   
  
The silence that followed was the worst yet. The final seconds that tick down before the explosion of a bomb could not be any more terrible. Giles felt his heart clench in his chest as he sought to keep the truth from his face.   
  
"Where do I find it." Softly spoken, it nevertheless was more a command than a question. Twice only had he ever deceived her, and he had sought to do it a third time. Once more only, but by now she had learned the signs of his deceit. Still, he refused to tell her, and even as his spirit quailed beneath the steel of her glare, his jaw remained firmly clenched.   
  
The silence stretched on and on... Giles wondered vaguely how none of them were yet bleeding from it.   
  
It was Tara who broke first, though the others were only moments behind. "You need to ask the Oracles!" the gentle wicca cried. "Beneath the-"   
  
"I know where they are." Buffy said shortly, and spun on her heel to walk swiftly out the door. Behind her, everyone leapt to their feet and chased after her, calling out for her to wait.   
  
"Buffy, stop-"  
  
"You don't know-"  
  
"The risk! The risk!"  
  
"It's-"  
  
The slam of the door was their only answer. In the quiet that followed, only one voice was heard.   
  
"Oh, bloody hell."   
  
*****   
  
Tunnel systems snake their twisted paths beneath the entire city of Sunnydale. A vampire can cross from one end of the town to the other without ever having to dare the kiss of sunlight, and in the darker sections, human sacrifice has been carried on for generations. During her five years in Sunnydale, Buffy had acquired an almost unparalleled knowledge of this underground metropolis, yet even she rarely ventured into the tunnel system without the aid of her painstakingly constructed maps. The almost uniform appearance of all the tunnel passages made even simple trips dangerous, and more than once she had stumbled upon the remains of creatures who had died not from any blow or spell, but merely from hunger and thirst.   
  
Tonight, however, Buffy needed no map as she traced the oldest tunnels down to the deepest levels. Every step that she took had been imprinted upon her memory four years ago, when she followed a child vampire down these dark passages to meet her death.   
  
As she stepped into the sunken church, the relentless drive that had brought her thus far faltered for a moment as her gaze was drawn to the shallow pool where at one time her life had ended. A sudden noise surprised her into leaping backwards, but it was a rat that showed its face and not The Master.   
  
Taking deep breaths, she slowed her racing pulse. Slowly, she walked down to the edge of the pool, and knelt upon the spot where the fangs of The Master had once ripped into her throat.   
  
"I seek an audience," she whispered, but the acoustics of the fallen building echoed her voice across every wall. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them....   
  
....she was kneeling in a hall of white marble. The damp chill of the sunken church was replaced with a sudden dry warmth that forced her to blink several times. At the end of the hall, an oddly familiar man lounged in a marble chair, toying with a chessboard.   
  
"Come before us, Slayer."   
  
Rising, she slowly walked down what seemed like an impossible long distance. Though she would've sworn that only she and the man were present in the hall, soft feminine whispers floated behind her. Gritting her teeth, she refused to look at anything except the throne.   
  
Finally reaching her goal, she looked up at the man on the throne, and was again struck by his familiarity. Short dark hair fell around an average face, and something in the expression on that face made Buffy reevaluate her initial classification of this figure as a man.. he was still more of a boy, perhaps seventeen at the oldest. The dark brown eyes, however, were utterly alien.   
  
An odd little smile played around his mouth as he observed her confusion. "Recognize this body, Slayer?" he asked.   
  
It was the smile that brought the memory rushing back, the first person in Sunnydale whom she had failed to save. "....Jesse?" he nodded, and clapped mockingly. "Is this supposed to be a joke?" she asked angrily.   
  
"Perhaps... and perhaps not." Jesse shrugged lightly. "Perhaps you should view this form as a warning about the knowledge that you seek."   
  
"A warning or a message? If I'd gone after Jesse that night, I might've saved him before they had a chance to turn him."   
  
"Ah, this is true. And, yet, the world is still standing, isn't it? The absence of one mere boy has not ended it." Those alien eyes urged her to listen, but Buffy ignored them.   
  
"I need the name of the creature that's calling herself Glory."   
  
"Weighty knowledge indeed." he murmured. "Just remember that a warning was given while you still had a chance to turn back and lose nothing."   
  
"Tell me the name." Buffy stared at him, as unmoving as stone.   
  
"Nothing comes without a price." Rising to his feet, Jesse made a shaking movement that reminded Buffy of a dog shaking water from its fur, and just as easily, the form of Jesse was cast aside. What remained was a bronze-skinned creature dressed in a smoothly folded toga. It had wings, but not the double-feathered set that was common among angelic pictures. A hundred leathery appendages fluttered restlessly from its back. The slitted orange eyes were almost as sharp as the huge scythe held casually in its left hand.   
  
Buffy took an involuntary step backwards at the sudden appearance of this creature, but one step was all. Taking a deep breath, she met its eyes and said, "What price?"   
  
It appeared to consider her for a moment, tapping one long finger against the blade of the scythe. "For this case.... your right eye."   
  
For just a moment, Buffy didn't quite understand. Then, the idea sunk in and her face drained of all color. "My.... eye?"   
  
"We've made this deal once before, you know." the creature said blithely.   
  
"Can I... can I have some time?"   
  
"No. It must be now."   
  
A long moment passed.... and then Buffy nodded.   
  
Gravely, the creature shook her hand, sealing the deal. From deep in the folds of his toga, he retrieved a scroll. Handing it over to Buffy, he said mildly, "If I give you another warning, will you ignore it as you did my other one?"   
  
"Possibly." Buffy answered truthfully.   
  
"There are reasons that that name is not written anywhere in the mortal realms. To even utter it would rip the tongue from your mouth. And even after that sacrifice, she would not be defeated. All that that name would do was strip away all the illusions that she has cultivated... she would be returned to her true form, and killable, but you yourself would be incredibly weakened." One look at Buffy, however, showed him that his words were having no effect. "How can you be willing to make these sacrifices, knowing that victory is not assured or even likely?" An expression of bafflement had crossed his ageless face.   
  
"Dawn is my sister." Buffy said simply.   
  
"She isn't, and you know it. What you perceive as your sister is merely a disembodied force that has been given form and substance. Shadow and dust, nothing more."   
  
"She is innocent," was the unbending response.   
  
"So was this one!" With a wave of his hand to accompany that uncharacteristic cry, the figure of Jesse once again appeared. "This one was innocent, and harmed no one, yet his death did not bring about the end of the universe. And neither will the death of Dawn! The Nameless One will kill her, and then return to her own universe. Only one life need be lost." For a long moment, the creature regarded Buffy with bright orange eyes. "All I ask is that you consider," with a long finger, it gently toppled the figure of a pawn on the chessboard, "a strategic loss."   
  
The expression on Buffy's face was fathomless as she slowly turned to go, the scroll held tightly in her hand.   
  
"One moment, Slayer," the creature called gently. With a gentle flick of his wrist, the huge scythe blurred and became a precisely honed scalpel. "There's still the matter of payment."   
  
  
~*~*~*~*~  
  
Part Two  
  
~*~*~*~*~  
  
It was almost midnight when the slim figure of Buffy Summers exited the tunnels and began to make her way towards Main Street. At one point in her journey, a newly risen vampire snarled threateningly from the doorway of a small bar located on the left side of the street, and was greeted with a casually thrown stake that reduced the creature to a pile of dust for its fellow drinkers to marvel at. At another point, a stray alley cat brushed against Buffy's right leg, mewing loudly in hopes of a scrap of food. In sharp contrast to the smooth grace and presence that had marked the staking of the vampire, she jerked away with a muffled cry of horror, calming only when the arm she threw out in a desperate gesture to shove away the unknown threat came in contact with a soft furry pelt. Buffy twisted her head to a sharp angle to regard the feline, then walked on.   
  
The path Buffy followed was marked by many such odd occurrences where she reacted with easy competence in some instances, but painful uncertainty in others. Finally, she reached The Magic Box, and slipped in through the back door. Once in the pitch black of her training room, she seemed more comfortable and at ease than she had out on the dimly lit streets. Making no move towards the light switches, she walked the room by memory, tracing various weapons with a professional hand. The dull murmur of voices filtered in from the front area of the shop, where the Scoobies waited impatiently for her return. Once, the connecting door slid halfway open as Xander made a routine check of the training room. Seeing nothing but darkness, however, he left, closing the door behind him. Had he made more than a cursory check, however, he would've seen a familiar figure crouching beside a display of long spears and swords, and would've wondered why a large swatch of cloth that looked remarkably like the fabric of Buffy's sleeve was bound tightly over her right eye. Had he investigated closer, he would've been disturbed by the odd stains that the cloth bore - stains that strongly resembled dried blood.   
  
As it was, however, Xander closed the door without having witnessed any of those interesting sights. It was only an hour later that he checked the training room again, this time thinking to turn on the overhead lights. It was on this occasion that he noticed the absence of a large spear.   
  
*****  
  
Dawn's rescue came in true 11th hour tradition, just as Glory had lifted an ornately (and rather ostentatiously) bejeweled knife to put an end to the younger Summers sister and was waiting with a noticeable lack of patience for Dreg to return with some ritual incense that had to be lit.   
  
"Honestly," Glory complained to a tightly bound and gagged Dawn, "you'd think that with all the fuss everyone made about the millennium that they would've finally rewritten a few of these ancient rituals. Bring them up to speed, and finally eliminate the need for incense. Why do we even need it, anyway? Every time I do some kind of sacrificial offering it takes the dry cleaners days to get the smell out of my clothes. And," she glanced condescendingly at the terrified young girl, "I certainly hope you have the decency not to twitch and splash your blood all over me. With all the trouble you gave me in tracking you down, you could at least try and be helpful."   
  
A loud rapping at the door broke off her train of thought, and she gave a loud sigh of relief. "At last. You'd think that the scabby little twit had had to make it from scratch instead of just opening a plastic package. Come in, already!"   
  
The door slammed open, and the figure of Dreg appeared at the doorway for one moment, his head hanging limply at a critical angle on his broken neck. The corpse balanced neatly for one moment before falling slowly into a crumpled heap. Behind him, Buffy stood stiffly, glancing wildly around the room out of her one eye. The remains of the right eye were still concealed beneath her impromptu bandage, but Dreg had managed to slam an elbow into the wound during his capture, so blood was soaking through the cloth to coat the right side of her face.   
  
Glory had never been one to think quickly on her feet, preferring to rely on her invulnerability to preserve her for however long it took her to adjust to any given situation. Had she been a more adaptable person, Buffy's weakened state would've made her an easy kill. As it was, however, the Slayer had one free moment to act in while Glory considered the scenario with Bush-like speed of thought.   
  
"Dawn, don't listen!" Buffy screamed, and then pulled out a softly glowing scroll from her pocket. Little Dawn's arms were firmly restrained, but she was being detained in Glory's wardrobe, and she was able to push herself back into Glory's collection of fur coats to muffle all sound. As Buffy began reading the one word written upon the scroll, Glory began to stalk forward as she suddenly realized what was happening, but that slow response time had finally been her undoing. The last thing Dawn saw was Buffy throwing down the scroll in triumph and readying the long spear in her hand as Glory shrieked in anger.   
  
Then the lights went out.   
  
And the fire began.   
  
*****  
  
With the speaking of Glory's true name, a huge wave of psychic energy rolled outward like a tidal wave, causing anyone with the slightest spiritual awareness to clutch at their heads in agony, including Tara and Willow back in The Magic Shop. Drawing on the deep power of Buffy's sacrifice, it tore away all of Glory's illusions.   
  
The sumptuously and expensively decorated penthouse apartment could once more be seen for the rundown factory that it was. The giant closet that Dawn had been caged in was revealed as nothing more than rotting wooden framework, and the rich furs that she had muffled herself in were just a pile of bones. When Giles cut through the ropes that had bound her, he saw that it wasn't rope at all that had been used, but rather human entrails.   
  
The blonde and leggy facade of Glory had been broken, and for a moment everyone stared in gaping amazement at the huge beast that lay in the center of the factory. Almost twenty feet long from snout to tail, it was covered with thick red scales which offered almost armor-like protection. The drops of acid-like saliva that dripped through the fang-filled jaws hissed into the concrete floor and bubbled as they ate away at it. The char marks that covered a large area of the factory was testament enough to the creature's ability to breathe fire, had the two charred bodies not been proof enough to sway even the most Scully-ish among the Scoobies. The sail-like wings lay limp, though it was probable that at the time of its death, the creature had been holding them at full extension.   
  
The huge yellow eyes seemed to glare through the fog of death at Spike as he leaned over to examine the death-wound. As before, Buffy had had only one chance to kill the creature before it almost certainly killed her, and she had used it well. One long, heavy spear had been slammed into the creature's chest with every bit of force that Slayer muscles which could bend steel could lend it.   
  
Two humanoid bodies lay in the wreckage. It was only because the body of Dreg was still mostly intact that they were able to identify which body was Buffy's. Deep burns covered her body, probably inflicted just after she slammed the spear into the heart of Glory. Even her closest friends cringed away from the sight of her mangled body, and only Giles was able to kneel down to kiss her goodbye. As he did so, he suddenly paused, then placed a hand on her neck.   
  
His face drained of all color. "My god..." he breathed. "She's still alive."   
  
*****   
  
For two days, the small group made camp in the waiting room of the hospital, a place that they had hoped to never have to frequent again. With Joyce still in recovery, all decision duties fell to Giles, who was Buffy's listed next-of-kin, and he signed paper after paper in a state of numb disbelief. For two days, the doctors merely shook their heads and said that it was far too early to make any prognosis. For two days, they sat helplessly and prayed.   
  
It was at sunset on the third day that one of the doctors who had worked on Buffy walked up to the small group and cleared his voice to speak.   
  
"Miss Summers seemed to have stabilized... for the moment. But I feel that a decision should be made. At this point, I would like to ask you for permission to remove her breathing tube."   
  
Pandemonium. Angry words were lashed at the doctor from all sides, but it was Willow's accusation of, "What gives you the right to ask that?" that he answered.   
  
"I could lose my license for merely suggesting this, but there is no way that I could ethically stay silent. I have been present during all six of the surgeries that we performed on Miss Summers. We've had to open up her chest cavity to perform internal repairs four times. Her left leg was almost completely shredded, and we had to remove it at the hip. We managed to save her right leg, but it will take years of rehabilitation for her to regain even half the use of it. The burn damage on her upper body is frightening, and she is no longer even recognizable. We still have hopes that her right hand won't need to be removed. The nerves on her face and most of her right side are beyond recovery, and there is a good chance of permanent damage to her brain. In addition to all of this, her tongue was somehow ripped out, and at some very recent time her right eye was removed with surgical precision. And yet," here, the doctor swallowed deeply, "and yet, she is alive, and healing quickly. Everything that I have ever learned in medicine tells me that she should've been dead on arrival. We expected her to die on that operating table, but against all natural law she didn't. She's in what appears to be a coma now, but her healing rate has almost quadrupled since she entered it." The doctor swallowed again, and stepped closer, pitching his voice very low, almost as though he was afraid of being overheard. "I've been a doctor in Sunnydale for ten years, and I've seen some amazing things, but never anything like this. This girl just isn't normal... nothing about her healing system is. I saw a scar on her back that looked about fifteen years old.. but when I pulled her medical file, I found an entry for a large back wound in that same spot that occurred eight months ago. I don't know what she does... but even if all of those other wounds heal, she can't regrow what she lost completely. I'm begging you to consider her quality of life, and to think about the possibility of taking her off the respirator now, while she still has the chance for a painless death. There are four surgeons who agree with me... if you decide the way that I hope you will, contact any of us." Passing a small list of names to Giles, the doctor turned and walked down a corridor.   
  
*****  
  
Two hours later, Giles sat next to the bed of his Slayer, and wished with all his heart that she had let him go back to England instead of asking him to be her Watcher. Or that he had died, rather than having lived to make this painful decision.   
  
The moment the doctor had left, the arguments began. Xander and Willow had rejected any possibility of unhooking her respirator, while Tara and Anya had meekly voiced their support of sparing her more pain. Now, the decision was left up to Giles, who had come to make his choice. A choice that would mean life or death for the girl that he loved as much as if she had been the daughter of his flesh and blood.   
  
Her small body was swaddled in clean white bandages that tried to mask the utter destruction, but did a poor job of it. The empty impression beneath the stiff hospital blanket where her left leg should've lain tore at Giles' heart, and he looked away from it quickly. Only two areas were whole and undamaged. Her left arm was clear of all bandages save for a bright green band-aid that marked a minor cut that had still required three stitches on her shoulder. The area from her left eye to the bottom of her jaw had also been spared from the fire. Giles focused on this for hope, and also on the dry, artificial sound of the respirator.   
  
htttthhh.....shhhhhtt....  
  
Tears welled in his eyes, and Giles buried his face in his hands and sobbed brokenly. Reaching out, he gently grasped Buffy's hand as he urgently begged her forgiveness for what he was going to do.   
  
Rising from the chair, he slowly walked into the hallway, where Xander, Willow, Anya, Tara, Dawn, and the doctor were waiting. Taking a deep breath, he turned to the doctor and said the hardest words of his life.  
  
"Unhook the respirator."  
  
*****   
  
They gathered around the bed, none willing to be apart from Buffy during the last minute of her painfully short life. Arguments were forgotten as Xander held Anya so tightly that she normally would've yelped in pain, and Willow buried her face in Tara's shoulder. Dawn sat to one side, her face dreadfully pale as she stared at her sister with frightened eyes. Giles slid his hand into Buffy's, and watched as the doctor unhooked the piece of equipment that had been sustaining her breath.   
  
For a long moment, all was silent.  
  
Then there was a wet, gasping sound as Buffy drew her first breath.   
  
  
~*~*~*~*~  
  
Part Three  
  
~*~*~*~*~  
  
One week crawled by so slowly that it seemed to Dawn that she'd lived each day a dozen times over. No one was really paying attention to her, and the first time she was grateful rather than resentful. The nurses had stopped trying to shoo her home after visiting hours expired, understanding at last that those posted hours didn't apply to her. None of Buffy's friends really wanted to stay. They came daily, but Dawn watched as the visits became shorter and shorter. Maybe it was because of the sound of Buffy breathing - the wet, gasping sound certainly caused the doctors to keep their visits as brief as possible. Maybe it was because of the twisting scar tissue that roped its way across Buffy's face, which reminded Dawn of one of those plastic Halloween masks that could turn anyone into a monster. Maybe it was the horrible emptiness beneath the sheet where her left leg should've been. Maybe it was all of these and more.   
  
None of that mattered, though. What really mattered was that by the end of the week, Dawn was all alone with her sister. No one was there to stop her when she crawled up onto the bed beside the horribly still form of her older sister and gently rested her head against Buffy's unbandaged left shoulder. Dawn spent hours like this, forcing herself to ignore the breathing, the scars, and the emptiness, and just remember the many times that Buffy had held and protected her. Remember how when they first came to Sunnydale, Buffy had always been there to comfort her during the transition to their new home. Remember how it had been Buffy who used to take her out for ice-cream at night when their parents had argued so badly during that last year in LA.   
  
Sometimes, during those long hours when Dawn slept beside Buffy, she could forget that those were all false memories. She'd never existed until a few months ago, and she had just been some mystical burden that a few monks had dumped in Buffy's lap.   
  
Other times, she'd listen to Buffy's labored breathing and pretend that Glory had just been lying when she had said all those things - and that Giles had been lying too when he confirmed them. And that the uncomfortable and vaguely accusatory looks that the others sent her were just because they were wrong. After all, hadn't Buffy always been there for her?   
  
Hadn't Buffy been willing to give her life for her? And why would Buffy do that for some ball of energy that wasn't even human?   
  
Vaguely, Dawn was aware that the world was continuing beyond the private room that had become her sanctuary as she sat a constant vigil beside Buffy. From what she had picked up in snippets of overheard conversation, both the Watcher's Council and the local demon population had made several attempts on Buffy's life, only barely stopped by either Spike or the Scooby Gang. She knew that Giles had barely stopped short of staking Spike after he caught the vampire licking the blood from Buffy's discarded bandages, and that Willow and Tara had put a whole slew of warding spells around the hospital room. She knew that Mom was having something close to a nervous breakdown, and was being kept heavily doped on tranquilizers. She knew that the argument of 'easing Buffy's pain' had been dropped completely after the issue had changed from just removing a breathing tube to actually having to physically kill her.   
  
She knew all of these things, but they seemed so far away from the reality of her sister that Dawn stopped thinking about them entirely.   
  
This was the situation when, one week to the day after Buffy's breathing tube had been removed, Buffy woke up.   
  
~*~*~*~*~   
  
Dawn registered the change in her sister's breathing almost immediately, and sat up quickly. Buffy's one eye was open and watching her with an almost frightening intensity. Dawn began to reach for a button to summon a nurse, but a sharp gesture from Buffy's left hand stopped her. Dawn watched as Buffy opened her mouth to say something, and cringed as nothing came out but a moaning croak. Buffy's eye widened as full memory of everything came rushing back to her, and a look of utter loss filled that one expressive orb.   
  
All but two fingers on her right hand had been removed in the two surgeries since the tube was removed, so Dawn slid the pen into Buffy's left hand and braced the pad of paper herself. Buffy wrote slowly, as though even lifting the pen was requiring every scrap of fortitude and willpower that she possessed. At her written prompting, Dawn told her everything that had occurred since the death of Glory, leaving out nothing.   
  
For long minutes after Dawn's voice finally fell silent, Buffy closed her eye and rested. Finally, she slowly lifted the pen once more and painstakingly wrote two words. As Dawn read them, she felt her whole body freeze with horror. Shaking her head desperately, she tried to ignore the pleading look in Buffy's one eye.   
  
But, at last, she slowly nodded even as tears threatened to blind her, and shivers wracked her small body.  
  
Buffy dropped the pen and gently squeezed Dawn's hand in thanks, and mouthed 'I love you'. Dawn scrubbed her eyes quickly with the heel of her hand, even as more sprung forth at this reminder that her sister could no longer give voice to her thoughts. Taking a deep breath and forcing herself to be strong, she lifted up the pillow that had cushioned her back during her week-long sojourn in the stiff chair positioned next to her sister's bed.   
  
~*~*~*~*~   
  
Down in the nurse's station, an alarm began to shrill loudly, warning that the patient in Room 314 was flatlining. Even as the head nurse began running down the hallway, she couldn't help but feel a sense of relief that that poor girl was finally at peace.   
  
~*~*~*~*~  
  
Summers, Buffy, age 19, was declared dead at 12:13AM ten days after her admittance. With so many advanced injuries, her death would've been a open-and-close matter had the doctor on call not happened across a scrap of paper with the scrawled words, 'Kill Me' on them. An autopsy proved that Miss Summers had been smothered, probably while conscious.   
  
End   
  
******************  
  
Happy New Year  
  
~Robyn the Snowshoe Hare  
December 31, 2000  
  
******************  
  



End file.
